LDS Priesthoods Not Found In The Writings Of The Early Church Fathers

[BigDaddy4]

Did Jesus not need apostles/preists and priesthood?

And if he did need them, why, since to your logic, he is the only one that was needed to save people. Why did Jesus need apostles, or anybody like bishops and the like? Why didn't Jesus just send the Holy Spirit to baptize a person in the Holy Spirit that showed interest? And that be it?

Isn't that all you think is needed? God inspires a person to believe in Jesus, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to baptize that person by fire and the Holy Spirit, and then Jesus saves them in the kingdom of
God. Why does Jesus need a church or apostles or anybody? Sound pretty automatic to me.

Did Jesus need apostles to convert the apostles? Did he not say "Come, follow me.."? The apostles, disciples, followers of Jesus, etc. all point to JESUS. Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples. He did not say "go and spread your apostleship and priesthood, for without you my people cannot be saved". That's a bunch of bull excrement that you are spreading. And you wonder why Christians believe mormons have a false gospel?

 

[chevyontheriver]

The logic that every particular in 120 was apostate is not logical, but that a good % of the universe was apostate or starting to go apostate is logical given the biblical scriptures. So around 120 there were some particulars of the universe already gone apostate. By 200 more of the particulars had gone apostate, by 325, the universe had pretty much gone apostate.

That scenerio is a logical sequence. If by 325 a non-Chiristian emperor had to bring a carload of bishops from around the Christian world to come to a council to debate what the Christian God was made of, you know that it was gone by then. And subsequent councils to debate the Christology of Jesus, which tended to divide rather than unify is a pure sign of apostasy.

Remember Ephesians 4:13, Jesus gave apostles and prophets and others (but does not mention bishops) until we all come into a unity of the faith. It is because the apostles are gone that we are ot in a unity of the faith, and by 325 they didn't even know the true nature of the Godhead and the nature of Jesus Christ any more. They had to debate the issue. And remember too, that it was not the Holy Spirit that guided, it was that faction withing the church whose bishops got to the council first that made the decisions. Pure apostasy.

So the particulars, slowly gave way to the universe. But the scriptures I gave you were just the start of the apostasy. It is all very logical.

Your claim is total apostasy. But now it looks like creeping apostasy. What you want to claim is that for each X, that X is apostate. What you can actually support, and I would even agree with you is the following. There exists an X, and that X is apostate. Those are vastly different claims. In fact Mormon claims fail if there is but one remaining even small center of non-apostasy in some out of the way hamlet of the Ninevah Plain. And you think you have proved that, I guess.

People in the hamlets of the Ninevah Plain are traditional people. They measure change by the millennium and not by the century and certainly not by the month. And yet they are Catholic. They speak differently, dress differently, eat different things, sing different songs, are incredibly different than you and I, and that is because they haven't changed since they first learned Christ in the 0030's and 0040's and 00 50's and 0060's before they fled Jerusalem for the hills as they were warned to in prophecy. So when Jerusalem was sacked and the temple was destroyed they were already safely gone. These are people you must say are apostate. But they haven't changed one iota. I am in communion with them. You look down on them as apostate.

Not only the Christians of the Ninevah Plain matter here, but the Christians of Syria, the Christians of Ethiopia, the Christians of the Rus, and on and on and on. Some of them radically isolated from the rest of the world. You have to believe that all of them went apostate. And you have no historical basis to say so. Never mind you do not have a historical basis to say that of the sees of Antioch or Alexandria or Rome. You COULD raise the Arians, who almost succeeded in leading a total apostasy, but they were defeated and orthodoxy was restored.

Your 'all very logical' still falls flat. First because it fails the test of logic itself. Then it fails the test of history. You don't have the historical record of things that have happened to show your work. You have only predictions you view in a maximalist way, and then you have isolated incidents way after the supposed fact that you point to as proof. You close your eyes tightly to actual history and even tighter to the ordinary faithfulness of Christians in the times you say everything went apostate. I am in communion with those guys, and with their descendants who walk the earth today. I believe what they believed and they believed what their grandparents believed going all the way back to Christ.

Today is the feast day of St. John of Damascus, who is considered the last of the Fathers of the Church, and is considered a doctor of the Catholic Church. As the last of the Fathers, he sets a capstone for the whole of traditional Christianity. If you want to know what we believe, compare his teaching to the earlier Fathers and to the New Testament. It's the same stuff. You can't find historical precedent for Mormon positions. Not outside of maybe the Gnostics.

You still have to date the apostasy, because even if it a creeping apostasy there has to be a real endpoint or Mormonism is false. So what year is it actually? You seem to want to say 325, but then you hedge your bet quite a bit. Was it 326? 327? 340? 380? 400? 425? 500? 750? 900? Enquiring minds want to know.

You wrote about Ephesians 4 and no bishops. Do you invalidate 1Timothy, 2Timothy, Titus? They conveniently DO mention bishops.

 

[Peter1000]

Your claim is total apostasy. But now it looks like creeping apostasy. What you want to claim is that for each X, that X is apostate. What you can actually support, and I would even agree with you is the following. There exists an X, and that X is apostate. Those are vastly different claims. In fact Mormon claims fail if there is but one remaining even small center of non-apostasy in some out of the way hamlet of the Ninevah Plain. And you think you have proved that, I guess.

I do claim total apostasy. But that total apostasy did not start on 120ad and finish up on 325ad. So stop asking for difinitive dates.
.
Like I have said many times, it started while the apostles were still alive, and by 325ad it was reaching fruition, and would never return to the original. The hamlet in the Ninevah Plain, and Syrians, and Ethiopians, and Rus, and on, and on, and on, do not have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and although you say they are teaching what the original church taught, heaven is not recognizing their work of the ministry. That stopped when the apostles were all killed. No more keys. The alternative method will be the way these people will be saved.

Your 'all very logical' still falls flat. First because it fails the test of logic itself. Then it fails the test of history. You don't have the historical record of things that have happened to show your work. You have only predictions you view in a maximalist way, and then you have isolated incidents way after the supposed fact that you point to as proof. You close your eyes tightly to actual history and even tighter to the ordinary faithfulness of Christians in the times you say everything went apostate. I am in communion with those guys, and with their descendants who walk the earth today. I believe what they believed and they believed what their grandparents believed going all the way back to Christ.

We have an exact dates in history that help us with the apostasy. Around 60-70ad Paul tells Timothy that "all Asia" has turned from me. We could call this the beginning if you wish. A little later, John tells us in 3 John (which was written 90-110ad) tells us that at least one area of the church no longer lets apostles come and visit, therefore rejecting the apostles. Are these special events, isolated events. Well, we do know at this time that the church was not in full apostasy mode, but was the beginning of the apostacy, even while the apostles were still alive. After they were dead, it moved more quickly downhill.

By 325, we have a non-Christian who is the head of the Christian church. A pretty good time to say that the apostasy was nearing its fullness. Constantine, and if you don't think he was the head of the church just read how many of the bishops at that time saw the emperor as the final arbiter on matters of doctrine and church organization and even who would be church bishops. The tradition of emperor/final arbiter remained for hundreds of years through the descendents of Constantine. So after constantine, and time you had a schism and a new church came into existence, you can date it and know that the apostasy was still alive and well.

Today is the feast day of St. John of Damascus, who is considered the last of the Fathers of the Church, and is considered a doctor of the Catholic Church. As the last of the Fathers, he sets a capstone for the whole of traditional Christianity. If you want to know what we believe, compare his teaching to the earlier Fathers and to the New Testament. It's the same stuff. You can't find historical precedent for Mormon positions. Not outside of maybe the Gnostics.

Compare "the Two Wills of Christ" doctrine with an earlier father and the NT, to see if John was teaching the same stuff as they taught about "the Two Wills of Christ". Thank you. Or if that is a tough one, compare Johns teachings of the "assumption of Mary" with earlier fathers and the NT, so we can see if he was teaching the same stuff.

You wrote about Ephesians 4 and no bishops. Do you invalidate 1Timothy, 2Timothy, Titus? They conveniently DO mention bishops.

No, just interesting that in this Ephesians scripture, the most important scripture that tell us why these offices were so important to the church, the office of bishop is not even mentioned. Just interesting.

 

[Peter1000]

Did Jesus need apostles to convert the apostles? Did he not say "Come, follow me.."? The apostles, disciples, followers of Jesus, etc. all point to JESUS. Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples. He did not say "go and spread your apostleship and priesthood, for without you my people cannot be saved". That's a bunch of bull excrement that you are spreading. And you wonder why Christians believe mormons have a false gospel?

Jesus told the apostles to go and preach his gospel to all the earth, and to baptize the believers in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the other 11 the power to bind and loose.

If they did not have the power to bind and loose, they would not be able to bind a person to the church through baptism. Since Christ could not be here to baptize new members, he must rely on men on the earth to perform this function, and if the function is not performed, the new member could not be saved.

Yes, Jesus needed the apostles and prophets and others to help him save people. If Jesus did not need the apostes etc, and the church, he would have never set them up with that authority.
He would have just said, wait until God, my Father entices you to believe in me, then I will send the Holy Ghost and you shall be baptized of fire and the Holy Spirit. You will then be mine, and no matter what you do after this until you die, I will lead you into my kingdom. Then nobody is needed to help Jesus. God and Jesus do it all and you are saved. The bible disputes this doctrine on every page.

According to Ephesians 4:11-14 Jesus and the church still need these men, and the true church will have them.

 

[chevyontheriver]

We have an exact dates in history that help us with the apostasy. Around 60-70ad Paul tells Timothy that "all Asia" has turned from me. We could call this the beginning if you wish. A little later, John tells us in 3 John (which was written 90-110ad) tells us that at least one area of the church no longer lets apostles come and visit, therefore rejecting the apostles. Are these special events, isolated events. Well, we do know at this time that the church was not in full apostasy mode, but was the beginning of the apostacy, even while the apostles were still alive. After they were dead, it moved more quickly downhill.

By 325, we have a non-Christian who is the head of the Christian church. A pretty good time to say that the apostasy was nearing its fullness. Constantine, and if you don't think he was the head of the church just read how many of the bishops at that time saw the emperor as the final arbiter on matters of doctrine and church organization and even who would be church bishops. The tradition of emperor/final arbiter remained for hundreds of years through the descendents of Constantine. So after constantine, and time you had a schism and a new church came into existence, you can date it and know that the apostasy was still alive and well.

That's just garden variety Protestantism.

 

[Peter1000]

That's just garden variety Protestantism.

So the reformers think the apostasy was real also. I thought so.

 

[chevyontheriver]

So the reformers think the apostasy was real also. I thought so.

And yet those today who discover the Church Fathers have a high risk of becoming Catholic.

 

[dzheremi]

I do claim total apostasy. But that total apostasy did not start on 120ad and finish up on 325ad. So stop asking for difinitive dates.

Stop claiming things that are vague enough to not need definitive dates as though they are historical fact then, Peter. Historical facts have concrete dates attached to them, even if they took a long time to "reach fruition", as you put it later. (Hence my earlier examples of the East-West and Chalcedonian schisms, which are dated to 1054 and 451, respectively, but which any student of history will tell you took quite a while to become firmly entrenched.)

Like I have said many times, it started while the apostles were still alive, and by 325ad it was reaching fruition

Why 325?

The hamlet in the Ninevah Plain, and Syrians, and Ethiopians, and Rus, and on, and on, and on,

Some of those people, namely the Syrians/Assyrians/Syriacs, were Christians long before 325, though. They were evangelized by St. Thaddeus of Edessa, one of the seventy disciples of Jesus. And in the case of the Ethiopians, while their conversion is dated by tradition to 330, there is some evidence from Axumite coinage that suggests Emperor 'Ezana converted before 324, which would also mean that the Ethiopians were Christian before your chosen year of 325 as well.

do not have the keys of the kingdom of heaven

Based on whose determination? Joseph Smith's, as though he even know anything about Christianity among the Syrians, Ethiopians, or East Slavs? Don't make me laugh.

and although you say they are teaching what the original church taught, heaven is not recognizing their work of the ministry.

Again, citation needed.

It's one thing to say that your own religion doesn't recognize them (we know that well enough already, and don't care), and quite another to claim that heaven doesn't. Who made you or your phony baloney prophets heaven's doormen, Peter? The arrogance on display here is really top notch, second to none. At least the Eastern Orthodox say they don't know where the Church isn't (only where it is -- i.e., their communion), and the Roman Catholics say that there are 'separated brethren' in other communions.

That stopped when the apostles were all killed. No more keys.

That doesn't make any sense. Not only was St. John not killed, in the Mormon conception of things he's still alive and has been alive all this time.

I'm aware from last time we discussed this particular bit of Mormon ecclesiology it was claimed that he just didn't pass his keys on to anyone, but that's different than saying as you are saying now that there are no more keys. Clearly if he's alive, and he's an apostle, then he must have them, no? So not "No more keys".

The alternative method will be the way these people will be saved.

Alternative method? You mean having some lily-white teenager who calls himself Brother Christiansen baptized in their names after they're all dead? Let me get on the phone to HH Abune Matthias and HH Abune Merkorios and tell them to shut it all down and have their flock of 36 million convert en masse to Mormonism. Hahahahahaha.

We have an exact dates in history that help us with the apostasy.

Whatever happened to "stop asking for definitive dates"?

Around 60-70ad Paul tells Timothy that "all Asia" has turned from me. We could call this the beginning if you wish. A little later, John tells us in 3 John (which was written 90-110ad) tells us that at least one area of the church no longer lets apostles come and visit, therefore rejecting the apostles.

So your evidence of total apostasy is that one province turns away from St. Paul, and that one individual church does not welcome the apostles? That doesn't fit with your claim of total apostasy at all. You can see the map at the link. That not only isn't the entire world, it's not even all of Anatolia, which is only one of several early Christian centers. That wouldn't even touch Mespotamia (which is reaches into southeastern Anatolia, not western, where Asia was), the Holy Land, Egypt, Rome, or India, all of which had Christian populations in the first century, during the time you are referencing. Roman Asia really is just Greece, Cyprus, and some of Turkey.

Are these special events, isolated events.

Yes! Is that not what's shown on the map?

By 325, we have a non-Christian who is the head of the Christian church. A pretty good time to say that the apostasy was nearing its fullness. Constantine, and if you don't think he was the head of the church just read how many of the bishops at that time saw the emperor as the final arbiter on matters of doctrine and church organization and even who would be church bishops.

I'm going to go with zero. Zero saw him that way. Just look at how hard the bishops in Egypt and elsewhere fought against the Arians (one of whom, Eusebius of Nicomedia, baptized Constantine on his deathbed), despite their influence on the imperial court before the establishment of Constantinople (when it resided at Nicomedia) to the point that they were able to get the pillar of Orthodoxy HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic exiled from his see not once, not twice, but three times (in 335, 338, and 356, respectively).

Quite frankly, writing something like this makes it clear that you are completely historically illiterate, and ought not be making statements about who controlled what when.

The tradition of emperor/final arbiter remained for hundreds of years through the descendents of Constantine.

No it didn't. It was Constantine's son, Constantius II, who renewed his father's banishment of HH St. Athanasius after the Arian synod of Tyre (335), and also placed Arians on the throne of the see of Alexandria to sit in place of HH St. Athanasius. None of this was accepted by the Church in Alexandria or anywhere at the time or ever since. Heck, Constantius II even sent expensive gifts to HH St. Liberius, Bishop of Rome (r. 352-366), in an attempt to get him to adopt the Arian position, but HH St. Liberius refused.

So I don't know where you're getting this stuff about the emperor being in control of all of this stuff. For sure, the emperor could impose this or that type of person to be bishop of whatever particular see was being intransigent at the time, as in the above case with the Arians who would usurp the throne of St. Mark, but whether or not the Church itself at that location would accept it was entirely another matter, and had nothing to do with the emperor. If anything remained the case for hundreds of years after Constantine it was that 'tradition' (see, e.g., Chalcedon, the iconoclastic controversies of the 8th-9th centuries, etc.), not the tradition you just made up of everyone having to do what the emperor says because he's the emperor or whatever. That's grade-F baloney.

So after constantine, and time you had a schism and a new church came into existence, you can date it and know that the apostasy was still alive and well.

Shouldn't you be on the side of those who were against the emperor, then? You know, the anti-Arian party of HH St. Athanasius, HH St. Liberius, et al.?

It looks like you're the one who needs to join a new church then, Peter.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

The great work for the dead has just really got started, and it will not be done until the end of the thousand years of the millenium. We have to be able to unravel the geneology of all that have been born through Adam. This will only be done when we can meet these people face to face and find out their mother and father etc., etc., etc. It will be one of the great works done in the millenium. Billions of people will be taught the truth and given all of the sacred ordinances, even the sacred marriage covenant for all those who stand up and want to be married for time and all eternity.

This is certainly a grand ambition but not one that I think Mormons can ever accomplish. It can only be done in a hypothetical resurrection when Christ returns at which point why the need to be baptized at all since they will be risen to glory? We also cannot ignore the most have been deprived of their own future positions as gods of their own simply because they lacked the rites of marriage.

Yet the deeper question is why, if these rites are so important, would God ever tolerate their fading? Why would he desire a world where true baptism, true marriage and the like simply don’t exist? You can’t blame it on Christians and a voluntary apostasy, because even if you condemn all Church leaders (which is unfair) there are still the laity that need these rites. God in not raising up a constant stream of Apostles to continue administering the sacred rites of salvation deprived them of these essential rites.

Again, God did not reject the world, the world rejected him, he decided to not provide any more Apostles because he knew they would just meet their death horribly and so he decided to use an alterative method, which he is doing, very successfully.

What do you mean they would meet death horribly? This is an assumption you can’t possibly prove. Not even all of the early Christians met death horribly and you’re suggesting because of the oppression of the world God couldn’t deal with it and just waved his hand?

Was Rome so strong that your God couldn’t conquer it, but my religion, a literal abomination, could? It simply makes no sense to me historically how you can make this argument.

God also left them with the bible to learn his truths from and many good leaders that kept their people from abominable teachings. With that much information a person should be able to steer clear of abominable teachings and stay close to the right path. No, God did not abandon.

What good is the bible if the understanding of it was never truly revealed? We can see Christ in the Old Testament because Christ provided himself as the key for understanding the text. The Christians of the first 1700 years of Church history could not have understood Mormonism from the bible without it being revealed. In fact it’s not clear which version of Mormonism Christians were to take from the bible since Mormonism has been in a constant state of change since it’s inception. Did the Apostles encourage polygamy? Doesn’t seem that way. Did the Apostles want more Apostles after they died? Why didn’t they appoint any?

Again and again we repeat the same questions and in the end you continue to blame us for what your God should have provided. My earlier questions were asked in such a manner so as to prevent us going around in this circle but you persist nevertheless.

How is it our fault when God could have raised anyone an Apostle? When all that is needed is God’s grace in order to make a believer perfect? How is it our fault that the bible became a useless book because God didn’t provide his representatives to administer the correct rites? Christians thought they were baptising. Christians had to deal with questions that needed answering and your God failed to give any answer.

I’m reminded of how Mormons use baptism by the early Church as an example of corruption. That in the didache it make certain exceptional cases of pouring water valid (such as when the life of someone is in danger). Yet Mormons decry this as an abomination. We had no right they protest. Yet what were the early Christians supposed to do when God wasn’t giving any revelation to answer these difficult questions? Does it even matter since our baptisms became invalid as soon as the Apostle John when the store for some cigarettes?

 

[Peter1000]

dzheremi says:

Why 325?

Like I say, by 325, Constantine, a non-Christian had taken the place of the apostles, at the head of the church. He became the final arbiter of major decisions in the church. Oh, the bishops got to make regular types of decisions for thier locals and of course there was disputes galore, but for the big serious decisions, the bishops took their greviences to the emperor. Constantine would then use his own brainpower to come to a conclusion and if anyone did not like his decision, they were replaced by a bishop that did what the emperor wanted.

You should know. Your hero Athanisius was exhiled many times, not by the bishops of the church but by the real head of the church, the emperor.

When you have a man that has murdered hundreds of thousands of lives and has torture chambers in his house, and upon his word, you live or die, you know the church is not the true church any more. You know Jesus is not going to abide with this church.

Some of those people, namely the Syrians/Assyrians/Syriacs, were Christians long before 325, though. They were evangelized by St. Thaddeus of Edessa, one of the seventy disciples of Jesus. And in the case of the Ethiopians, while their conversion is dated by tradition to 330, there is some evidence from Axumite coinage that suggests Emperor 'Ezana converted before 324, which would also mean that the Ethiopians were Christian before your chosen year of 325 as well.

So what if they were Christians before 325? By 325 they no longer had the right to do the work of the ministry. And this is not based on what JS said, it is based on what the bible says.
Ephesians 4:11-12 King James Version (KJV)
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Jesus gave the apostles and others to:
1) perfect the saints
2) the work of the ministry
3) the edifying of the body of Christ.

These are the things the apostles did, so if you no longer have apostles, this work as far as heaven is recongizing it, is fully stopped. IOW, not JS, but the bible.

When the bible tells us this is what happens if the apostles die and are not replaced, then it is no longer a Mormon lie, it is a biblical truth.

Again, citation needed.

Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He also give the apostles the power to bind and loose, and heaven will recognize their work. But heaven will not recognize anyones work that does not have that power. When all the apostles were killed off, according to the bible the true work of the ministry could not be done properly. It was done anyway, but heaven could not recognize their work. It is not arrogant, it is just a biblical fact.

So your evidence of total apostasy is that one province turns away from St. Paul, and that one individual church does not welcome the apostles? That doesn't fit with your claim of total apostasy at all. You can see the map at the link. That not only isn't the entire world, it's not even all of Anatolia, which is only one of several early Christian centers. That wouldn't even touch Mespotamia (which is reaches into southeastern Anatolia, not western, where Asia was), the Holy Land, Egypt, Rome, or India, all of which had Christian populations in the first century, during the time you are referencing. Roman Asia really is just Greece, Cyprus, and some of Turkey.

No, that was very near to the beginning of the apostasy. Total apostasy did not take place until Constantine took over the leadership of the church.

So I don't know where you're getting this stuff about the emperor being in control of all of this stuff.

The emperor certainly did not make all decisions. He left the little stuff for the bishops to quabble about. But when the bisops couldn't come to a decision, or a bishop felt like he was being treated unfairly, who could he go to for a final arbitration either for or against him. THE EMPEROR.
Since the emperor had no keys, the bishops he put on thrones of the sees had no keys, and the work of the ministry was stopped, heaven not willing to recongize any of it.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Your analysis of Constantine sort of makes my point about the Mormon view of history. Constantine was not an Apostle by anyone’s reckoning. Not in the terms of an official office, not in the terms of authority he had over the Church. One can point to panegyrics of Eusebius but aside from that, who is arguing that the Emperors were Apostles? They were the secular rulers of the Church, be they Christian or Pagan. A Christian Emperor could often favour doctrine and make it the imperial standard, but there were times when Orthodoxy was not favoured, yet it prevailed anyway. Arianism, Iconoclasm and other heretical movements were at one time favoured by secular power, yet they did not prevail.

Political authority was important for the strengthening of the Orthodox position, much like how the patronage of the Kings in Israel was responsible for the people’s waning or growing in the faith. In that Christians had a model for how they should run their realms and why should we say a standard of American secularism is the best thing? Why should we moderns judge the ancient world by political enlightenment standards?

Still, I find it odd that God could not have raised up a Mormon Emperor. Why not? He raised up King David who was a murderer and a man who had killed many, to the point God would not let him build his Temple. What was stopping God from making an Emperor an Apostle and proclaiming the true religion?

Peter, have you read any of the Fathers from the time of Constantine onwards? Augustine’s City of God? Athanasius on the Incarnation? Do these sound like men who were slavering to secular authorities? Ready to sell out God at a moment’s notice?

 

[Peter1000]

This is certainly a grand ambition but not one that I think Mormons can ever accomplish. It can only be done in a hypothetical resurrection when Christ returns at which point why the need to be baptized at all since they will be risen to glory? We also cannot ignore the most have been deprived of their own future positions as gods of their own simply because they lacked the rites of marriage.

Yet the deeper question is why, if these rites are so important, would God ever tolerate their fading? Why would he desire a world where true baptism, true marriage and the like simply don’t exist? You can’t blame it on Christians and a voluntary apostasy, because even if you condemn all Church leaders (which is unfair) there are still the laity that need these rites. God in not raising up a constant stream of Apostles to continue administering the sacred rites of salvation deprived them of these essential rites.

I would agree with you, if I did not believe and participate in this work for the dead on a daily basis. It is the most spiritual work you will ever do. Go to the temple of God and perform these ordinances to help someone who has died without these ordinances and do it in behalf of them. I believe in many cases these people are their in the room and know this event for them is happening.

What do you mean they would meet death horribly? This is an assumption you can’t possibly prove. Not even all of the early Christians met death horribly and you’re suggesting because of the oppression of the world God couldn’t deal with it and just waved his hand?

Was Rome so strong that your God couldn’t conquer it, but my religion, a literal abomination, could? It simply makes no sense to me historically how you can make this argument.

God just simply bypassed Rome and the rest, with his alternative method of salvation. He knew there would be righteous people and wicked people, but he let it run its course knowing that he had an answer for all of it. A fair and better answer.

Did the Apostles want more Apostles after they died? Why didn’t they appoint any?

Why did they ordain Matthias to replace Judas? Why was Paul and Barnabus chosen as apostles?
To take the place of fallen apostles. There may have been even more apostles, not recorded in the bible, we don't know for sure. It is said that maybe Timothy and Titus were apostles. So for a time they did appoint others, but eventually they were informed by Jesus to not appoint any more.

How is it our fault when God could have raised anyone an Apostle? When all that is needed is God’s grace in order to make a believer perfect? How is it our fault that the bible became a useless book because God didn’t provide his representatives to administer the correct rites? Christians thought they were baptising. Christians had to deal with questions that needed answering and your God failed to give any answer.

It is not your fault, it was the fault of the second century leaders of the world and the church for rejecting Jesus and allowing the foundation of the church (the apostles) to be killed. And there goes the true work of the ministry. God just bypassed all of this and moved these people into his alternative method of salvation.

The bible did not become useless, but the many interpretations and incessant quarls among the bishops and church doctors and scholars, has been the source now for thousands of different Christian religions, all claiming to teach the truth. Can't happen.

Yet what were the early Christians supposed to do when God wasn’t giving any revelation to answer these difficult questions?

They were to get by on their own understanding, because God did stop giving revelations to the leaders of the church (which your leaders actually agree with - there was a time when God was not giving public revellations any more). So the only answer is God allowed them to use their own finite minds to grow and administrer the church, which fairly early divided, ever to be one church again, and today thousands. A pure sign of apostasy.
God did not abandon them though, He just moved these people into his alternative method and saved them that way.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

God just simply bypassed Rome and the rest, with his alternative method of salvation. He knew there would be righteous people and wicked people, but he let it run its course knowing that he had an answer for all of it. A fair and better answer.

Bypass Rome? Alternative method? I suppose the difference between our views is that I don’t believe God’s grace is held captive by the power of man. God never trembled before Rome, rather he at the perfect time in history set within its midst a fire that could not be put out. Faith in Christ, a force while not directly opposing it, continued to oppose it from within and radically reshape the Empire. Julius Caesar would have been stunned to learn what his Empire had become by the 7th century, a Christian Imperium.

Why did they ordain Matthias to replace Judas? Why was Paul and Barnabus chosen as apostles?

To take the place of fallen apostles. There may have been even more apostles, nor recorded in the bible, we don't know for sure. It is said that maybe Timothy and Titus were apostles. So for a time they did appoint others, but eventually they were informed by Jesus to not appoint any more.

Paul didn’t replace anyone and neither did Barnabas. So if we’re to take your logic that Paul being called an Apostle means he had an official office (instead of a descriptor) then there were really 14 Apostles. Actually there are 13 Apostles today according to Mormonism because John is still around somewhere. Maybe even watching this thread.


We have only one instance of an Apostle being replaced and that was to replace the traitor Judas. Apostles as a position within the Church however were limited to the original 12. Paul I think had authority in his Churches because he helped establish them, same as any priest has authority in the Church he sets up.


Still, you can’t explain why Jesus just ordered them to stop. There were plenty of qualified people. The world would likely be better off if the gifts and rites of the Mormon god were around.

It is not your fault, it was the fault of the second century leaders of the world and the church for rejecting Jesus and allowing the foundation of the church (the apostles) to be killed. And there goes the true work of the ministry. God just bypassed all of this and moved these people into his alternative method of salvation.

What second century leaders? Who? How many? Specific historic details. Did Ignatius reject his duty? What about Polycarp? Ireneaus? These are our representatives and I see nothing in them that indicates an abandoning of the faith. I see nothing in them that warrants them being forgotten by God and being deprived of his rites. If Mormons, who are just as sinful as they were, get the benefits of LDS sacred rites and rituals why shouldn’t they have?

The bible did not become useless, but the many interpretations and incessant quarls among the bishops and church doctors and scholars, has been the source now for thousands of different Christian religions, all claiming to teach the truth. Can't happen.

If a text’s meaning has to be read through a specific lens then it has become useless or it’s full meaning can never be appreciated. Take the Jews for instance, their reading of the bible forbids a reading of Jesus in it. Therefore they will never have the fullness of the Old Testament. It can only be perceived in a certain way.

The New Testament likewise cannot be read by itself to speak of things like eternal marriage. The necessity of Polygamy and polyamory. Baptism for the dead as the Mormons do it today. Your Church services and aesthetics. That God was once merely a sinful man like were only to achieve divinisation and that we can too.

Mormons will pick at any strain to reach those interpretations within the New Testament but they aren’t natural to the text. The Apostles never intended polygamy to be in practice in the Church like it was in Mormonism. Nor do I think John was speaking metaphorically when he records God saying that he was the first. He wasn’t the first. There were likely infinite gods before him according to Mormons. Hence why Christians are fiercely concerned with monotheism and the reason there were such theological troubles regarding the Trinity.

They were to get by on their own understanding, because God did stop giving revelations to the leaders of the church (which your leaders actually agree with - there was a time when God was not giving public revellations any more). So the only answer is God allowed them to use their own finite minds to grow and administrer the church, which fairly early divided, ever to be one church again, and today thousands. A pure sign of apostasy.

God did not abandon them though, He just moved these people into his alternative method and saved them that way.

If God let the Mormons use their own minds. Deprived you of public revelation. Would you consider that an action of a loving Father? God we are told by the author Hebrews disciplines his children. Did he cease to love the Church to discipline her?

 

[He is the way]

dzheremi says:

Like I say, by 325, Constantine, a non-Christian had taken the place of the apostles, at the head of the church. He became the final arbiter of major decisions in the church. Oh, the bishops got to make regular types of decisions for thier locals and of course there was disputes galore, but for the big serious decisions, the bishops took their greviences to the emperor. Constantine would then use his own brainpower to come to a conclusion and if anyone did not like his decision, they were replaced by a bishop that did what the emperor wanted.

You should know. Your hero Athanisius was exhiled many times, not by the bishops of the church but by the real head of the church, the emperor.

When you have a man that has murdered hundreds of thousands of lives and has torture chambers in his house, and upon his word, you live or die, you know the church is not the true church any more. You know Jesus is not going to abide with this church.


So what if they were Christians before 325? By 325 they no longer had the right to do the work of the ministry. And this is not based on what JS said, it is based on what the bible says.
Ephesians 4:11-12 King James Version (KJV)
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Jesus gave the apostles and others to:
1) perfect the saints
2) the work of the ministry
3) the edifying of the body of Christ.

These are the things the apostles did, so if you no longer have apostles, this work as far as heaven is recongizing it, is fully stopped. IOW, not JS, but the bible.

When the bible tells us this is what happens if the apostles die and are not replaced, then it is no longer a Mormon lie, it is a biblical truth.



Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He also give the apostles the power to bind and loose, and heaven will recognize their work. But heaven will not recognize anyones work that does not have that power. When all the apostles were killed off, according to the bible the true work of the ministry could not be done properly. It was done anyway, but heaven could not recognize their work. It is not arrogant, it is just a biblical fact.


No, that was very near to the beginning of the apostasy. Total apostasy did not take place until Constantine took over the leadership of the church.


The emperor certainly did not make all decisions. He left the little stuff for the bishops to quabble about. But when the bisops couldn't come to a decision, or a bishop felt like he was being treated unfairly, who could he go to for a final arbitration either for or against him. THE EMPEROR.
Since the emperor had no keys, the bishops he put on thrones of the sees had no keys, and the work of the ministry was stopped, heaven not willing to recongize any of it.

I agree and I don't know why they let the government run the church. I found this article very interesting:
List of people burned as heretics - Wikipedia
There were some interesting people there.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I agree and I don't know why they let the government run the church. I found this article very interesting:
List of people burned as heretics - Wikipedia
There were some interesting people there.

The Church was never completely run by the government though I am willing to admit it was at times controlled and limited by the government. That goes for the period before Christianization and after. Before it was the official religion it was a targeted religion, whose spread was limited within the Empire. It was subject to the whims of Imperial decree, there were times of persecution and times of toleration. At the height of anti-Christian sentiment was Julian's reign, who forbade Christians to teach the classics of Greek literature. Why? So Christians couldn't influence Pagans to their way of thinking. It was a smart strategy but he died before he could cement his return to Paganism, thanks to the grace of God.

Even after the Church and State started to work together the relationship was never strictly top down from the Emperor to everyone else. Churches had influence of secular government like the secular government had on Churches. Each was keen to defend it's prerogatives and power.

Your simplify the situation when you reduce it to the Church being run by the government. It's an inaccurate picture. Lest we also forget how your Church compromised itself to gain statehood.

 

[chevyontheriver]

dzheremi says:

Like I say, by 325, Constantine, a non-Christian had taken the place of the apostles, at the head of the church.

There are some things you just don't get about Constantine. First, he had an empire to run, and it was going downhill, and he absolutely needed Christians to keep the whole mess from sliding even farther downhill. So he was motivated to do what he could to stabilize Christianity. And the Arian heresy was totally destabilizing Christianity. So he insisted they work it out, and called them to his palace at Nicea. He even told them the compromise he wanted them to accept. But they didn't accept his proposal, but instead totally repudiated it as well as the uncompromising Arian position. So much for Constantine ruling the Church. He couldn't even pull off a compromise between Arians and Catholics. And he didn't get his peace.

Good old Catholics were a contentious and uncompromising crew. Santa Claus, that is the real St. Nicholas, punched Arius at the council. No way was the compromise going to happen. If Constantine was the leader of Christianity as you pretend, he should have been able to pull it off. But he had no standing within Christianity. He asked for a council and they took him up on the offer. They would have called their own council eventually. The Church had regional councils in Rome, Ephesus, Carthage, Iconium, Antioch, Arabia, Elvira, Carthage again, Neo-Caesarea, Ancyra, and Arles. All of these before Nicea. All of them local, with limited travel costs.But none of them had the spreading crisis of Arianism to contend with.

Constantine was never the head of the Church. He was emperor, and needed Christianity to be stable as a protection for his empire, so he tried to force a compromise, one he didn't get.

 

[dzheremi]

Neither Constantine or his successors ever took over the leadership of the Church in any fashion. HH St. Athanasius' exiles are proof of that, not proof of the opposite, since in every place he went (e.g., Trier), he was received as the sole legitimate bishop of Alexandria despite his exile by two consecutive emperors, and Alexandria held a council in his absence in 339-340 which rejected his exile via the Arian council of Tyre, and refused to recognize his Arian replacement (Gregory of Cappadocia) who was placed on his seat by the emperor. That would be a mighty weird thing for them to do if, as you claim, Constantine was final arbiter of major decisions in the Church. Lest you get a different impression, who was the patriarch of the see of Alexandria was a major decision, since Egypt controlled the grain supply to much of the rest of the empire (hence that was the one charge from Tyre that stuck when HH St. Athanasius appeared before the emperor to complain about said council: the completely fabricated accusation that HH was somehow threatening to cut off grain supplies, which was not even something he had any personal control over in any fashion), so it was important that it be as stable as possible. Things like having the native Church (by then either home to the majority of Egyptians or soon to be so) reject the patriarch you chose for it is not good for that stability, yet there was nothing that any emperor could do to make it be otherwise. The same would be repeated after Chalcedon, with the murder of Proterius and the continued rejection of all of his successors by the majority of Egypt's Christians, even as some of the Chalcedonians (e.g., Timothy Salophakiolos) were quite well liked by the Coptic people.

When you have a man that has murdered hundreds of thousands of lives and has torture chambers in his house, and upon his word, you live or die, you know the church is not the true church any more. You know Jesus is not going to abide with this church.

What? What man is this? What are you even talking about? Hahaha...it's like you've gone completely crazy, forgotten who you're responding to, and are now back to typing about some dark medieval fantasy that you have of Roman Catholics murdering the entire world just because they can or something.

Stop reading Dan Brown novels and pick a real history book for once. Geez Louise...what is the point of even trying to talk to such a person who deliberately goes out of their way to not learn anything, and just repeats the same already-destroyed claims back at you whenever they're presented with contrary information?

If your religion is so true, why does it subsist in the minds of its members based on extremely easily-debunkable lies about Christianity?

So what if they were Christians before 325?

Because that's the date you chose...? Again, why did you choose that date, if it apparently doesn't matter? Just so that you could have some date to point to when everyone here rightly tells you that there's no historical evidence of the Mormon great apostasy fantasy?

By 325 they no longer had the right to do the work of the ministry. And this is not based on what JS said, it is based on what the bible says.
Ephesians 4:11-12 King James Version (KJV)
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ

How exactly does this pair of verses translate to the Syrians and the Ethiopians not having the 'right' to do the work of the ministry? It is talking about the gifts given to different people within the Church. Nowhere does it say "And if any particular people do not have those among them who they claim are prophets, they forfeit their right to do the work of the ministry", or anything even close to that. Neither has anyone in the history of Christianity before the invention of Mormonism has anyone read it as saying that, probably because that's transparently not there.

Besides, as I've shown many times over by reference to the letter of St. Jerome to Marcella in 385 AD concerning the presence of the Montanists in Rome, the Church does not disbelieve in prophecy, only instead in prophets who come bearing messages that are not in accord with the Old and New testaments. (Like JS...)

Jesus gave the apostles and others to:
1) perfect the saints
2) the work of the ministry
3) the edifying of the body of Christ.

These are the things the apostles did

Yes, and they're things that the Church does as well, even without the imagined 'office of apostle' invented by Mormons due to their biblical and historical illiteracy.

so if you no longer have apostles, this work as far as heaven is recongizing it, is fully stopped. IOW, not JS, but the bible.

Again, you don't find that in the Bible. Citation please as to where the Bible says that without people you call apostles, there is no perfecting of the saints, work of the ministry done, or edifying of the body of Christ. You won't find it because such a passage doesn't exist, but I'd still like to see what in the Bible you are basing this on.

When all the apostles were killed off, according to the bible the true work of the ministry could not be done properly.

But heaven will not recognize anyones work that does not have that power. When all the apostles were killed off, according to the bible the true work of the ministry could not be done properly.

It was done anyway, but heaven could not recognize their work. It is not arrogant, it is just a biblical fact.

No, that was very near to the beginning of the apostasy. Total apostasy did not take place until Constantine took over the leadership of the church.

Which never happened, so I guess according to your reasoning, there was never a total apostasy.

Thank you. Now you can stop spreading this vile and odious lie.

The emperot certainly did not make all decisions. He left the little stuff for the bishops to quabble about.

"Little stuff" like the theology of the Church...?

But when the bisops couldn't come to a decision, or a bishop felt like he was being treated unfairly, who could he go to for a final arbitration either for or against him. THE EMPEROR.

Yeah, and when the Church didn't agree with the emperor, it didn't listen to him, rebuked his party, and didn't accept his decisions...almost like he wasn't the final arbiter that you claim he was!

 

[chevyontheriver]

I agree and I don't know why they let the government run the church. I found this article very interesting:
List of people burned as heretics - Wikipedia
There were some interesting people there.

They didn't let the government persecute the Church. It happened. They didn't let the government run the Church. And that only happened inisolated places and times. In fact the Roman Church was particular to resist government control and insist on independence. That's been Catholic history all along.

 

[dzheremi]

I would like the Mormons here to explain to us Christians how, if the Roman emperor was the leader of the Church after 325 AD and made or arbitrated over all its major decisions, Christianity still existed after the most infamous Constantinian ruler, Emperor Julian, renounced Christianity and set about attempting to reestablish classical Greek paganism as the religion of the empire. Julian's rule was announced in early 360, long after the death of Constantine in 337.

 

[He is the way]

The Church was never completely run by the government though I am willing to admit it was at times controlled and limited by the government. That goes for the period before Christianization and after. Before it was the official religion it was a targeted religion, whose spread was limited within the Empire. It was subject to the whims of Imperial decree, there were times of persecution and times of toleration. At the height of anti-Christian sentiment was Julian's reign, who forbade Christians to teach the classics of Greek literature. Why? So Christians couldn't influence Pagans to their way of thinking. It was a smart strategy but he died before he could cement his return to Paganism, thanks to the grace of God.

Even after the Church and State started to work together the relationship was never strictly top down from the Emperor to everyone else. Churches had influence of secular government like the secular government had on Churches. Each was keen to defend it's prerogatives and power.

Your simplify the situation when you reduce it to the Church being run by the government. It's an inaccurate picture. Lest we also forget how your Church compromised itself to gain statehood.

We do believe in keeping the laws. That being said we do believe in keeping the commandments that Jesus gave to us. I worry that the inquisition may eventually happen again. I believe that many of the people killed were innocent of wrongdoing. I do not believe that people like king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella should have had the power to do what they did. Has God ever advocated torture?